“Does God know that I am here?” Eddie asks his wifeMarguerite in Heaven, from the book and movie The Five People You Meet
in Heaven,“I spent part of my life
running from Him, later I figured He didn’t even know I
existed.”

Many attenders at our GriefShare group, hosted
by the Circleville Church of the Nazarene, have found peace in this beautiful
and compassionate work. It is quite likely my favorite film of all. Like Job,
grieving folks are not easily comforted by glib scripture quotes or Pollyanna
answers. Job’sfriends, well about the
only thing they did right was to sit quietly with Job for seven days in the
Jewish custom of sitting shiva. Eliphaz, Bildad and
Zophargoofed up once they started offering trite formula
answers.

The Five People You Meet in Heavensits
quietly alongside one, the answers provided in this beautiful
film are gentle, deep and compassionate. An abusive father,
war, accidents, illness, death are part of Eddie’s life, a maintenance man at
an amusement park who figures his life never amounted to anything. Perhaps I
enjoy the film so much as I spent the summer of 1972 working and living at Cedar
Point. I used to listen to the waves on the beach late at night, think of all
the persons who had been to the park that day. Eddie learns just how much he and
everyone, every single person matters from his five people he meets in Heaven.
The folks in our GriefShare group matter, as did the
loved ones they lost.“ Life has to end, Eddie” explains
Marguerite, “ Love doesn’t.”

The Five People You meet in Heaven treats
every character with thekind of unlimited compassion
Jesus had for us all. Ruby’s “Seaside Diner” reminds
one of Luke 14: 14-24, the Parable of the Great Banquet. Whereas Jesus welcomed
all the “poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” to his eternal Banquet
, Ruby maintains the diner where she had waited on so many common working
folk as a young woman. Ruby, Eddie’s third person he meets in Heaven,shares
with him, “This was my idea, my heaven. Fights, accidents, fires, I would have
none of it! Everyone who suffered…,even for a moment …would be safe forever
.” I should like to work in an emergency department like
that. Through Ruby Eddie learns the hidden history of his abusive and distant
father, “I didn’t know you, I didn’t know your life, Dad” Eddie weeps as
his anger for his father melts with understanding. Many in GriefShare had
difficult relationships with their lost loved ones.

If you are hurting from the loss of someone close,
please consider attending our GriefShare group. We meet in the
Circleville Church of the Nazarene but we are entirely nondenominational,
wishing only to share with you our faith, strength and hope, gained from our own
experience with loss. GriefShare meets Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m.
Do join us, we’ll save a chair for you.

Brad Cotton is co-facilitator with Susan Weethee for
GriefShare. Brad is Convener for the Circleville Friends (Quakers) and is a
full-time emergency physician. Susan attends the Church of Christ in Christian
Union and is a paramedic with the Circleville Fire Department.